Competitive Advantage in Investing


Book Description

Links theory and practice for investment professionals and portfolio managers, demonstrating why some portfolios consistently perform better than others Investing well, like any other business, depends on competitive advantage. Some portfolios reliably generate greater returns than others because they simply are better positioned to benefit from strengths and avoid weaknesses. Building and using competitive advantage becomes central to the daily work of the best mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, insurers and virtually every other type of portfolio. But competitive advantage commonly is overlooked in most written work for investment professionals. The literature often varies between abstract formal treatments and pragmatic workbooks with little in between. Competitive Advantage in Investing fills the gap by integrating modern portfolio theory with actual practice in one comprehensive volume. This innovative book guides investment professionals on building and sustaining competitive advantage and helps policymakers and researchers apply theory in a wide range of practical settings. Author Steven Abrahams—Senior Managing Director at Amherst Pierpont Securities and former Adjunct Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School—draws from his experience in both academic theory and real-life strategic investing to bridge the two worlds. This valuable resource: Connects the formal literature on investing to the actual work of most institutional portfolio managers Examines core strengths and weaknesses that drive portfolio behavior at mutual and hedge funds, banks and insurers, at other institutions and for individuals Demonstrates how linking portfolio theory and practice can increase competitive advantage Offers a robust description of investing, markets, and asset value Competitive Advantage in Investing: Building Winning Professional Portfolios is a must-have book for any investment professional, policymaker, or researcher.




Business Models


Book Description

Different Business Models is different from other investment books because it breaks new ground. It deploys 129 business models to empower an outside investor to analyse the internal competitive advantage of companies and sectors. Competitive advantage Strong competitive advantage is only achieved by having low costs and/or doing something different from the competition. This must add value to the customer, who then pays a premium price. He is glued to the company, which will earn dependable revenue streams and be in the profit zone. Key features . 64 company business models are scored for competitive advantage. They include moats, recurring revenues, product differentiation, bolt-on acquisitions and bargaining power. . 65 sector business models are scored for competitive advantage. They include recession resistance, must-have products, sticky customers, toll bridges and megatrends. . The economic cycle is the ultimate arbiter of investment success or failure. . Other important tools are growth at a reasonable price, technical analysis, scuttlebutting, accounting for growth and investment axioms. Conclusion Business Models unearths the best companies to outperform in a bull or bear market, giving investors a real advantage. They can correctly evaluate a company or sector in 15 minutes and emulate Warren Buffett, who uses business models to invest in companies with strong competitive advantage.




Competitive Advantage in Investing


Book Description

Links theory and practice for investment professionals and portfolio managers, demonstrating why some portfolios consistently perform better than others Investing well, like any other business, depends on competitive advantage. Some portfolios reliably generate greater returns than others because they simply are better positioned to benefit from strengths and avoid weaknesses. Building and using competitive advantage becomes central to the daily work of the best mutual funds, hedge funds, banks, insurers and virtually every other type of portfolio. But competitive advantage commonly is overlooked in most written work for investment professionals. The literature often varies between abstract formal treatments and pragmatic workbooks with little in between. Competitive Advantage in Investing fills the gap by integrating modern portfolio theory with actual practice in one comprehensive volume. This innovative book guides investment professionals on building and sustaining competitive advantage and helps policymakers and researchers apply theory in a wide range of practical settings. Author Steven Abrahams—Senior Managing Director at Amherst Pierpont Securities and former Adjunct Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School—draws from his experience in both academic theory and real-life strategic investing to bridge the two worlds. This valuable resource: Connects the formal literature on investing to the actual work of most institutional portfolio managers Examines core strengths and weaknesses that drive portfolio behavior at mutual and hedge funds, banks and insurers, at other institutions and for individuals Demonstrates how linking portfolio theory and practice can increase competitive advantage Offers a robust description of investing, markets, and asset value Competitive Advantage in Investing: Building Winning Professional Portfolios is a must-have book for any investment professional, policymaker, or researcher.




Why Moats Matter


Book Description

Incorporate economic moat analysis for profitable investing Why Moats Matter is a comprehensive guide to finding great companies with economic moats, or competitive advantages. This book explains the investment approach used by Morningstar, Inc., and includes a free trial to Morningstar's Research. Economic moats—or sustainable competitive advantages—protect companies from competitors. Legendary investor Warren Buffett devised the economic moat concept. Morningstar has made it the foundation of a successful stock-investing philosophy. Morningstar views investing in the most fundamental sense: For Morningstar, investing is about holding shares in great businesses for long periods of time. How can investors tell a great business from a poor one? A great business can fend off competition and earn high returns on capital for many years to come. The key to finding these great companies is identifying economic moats that stem from at least one of five sources of competitive advantage—cost advantage, intangible assets, switching costs, efficient scale, and network effect. Each source is explored in depth throughout this book. Even better than finding a great business is finding one at a great price. The stock market affords virtually unlimited opportunities to track prices and buy or sell securities at any hour of the day or night. But looking past that noise and understanding the value of a business's underlying cash flows is the key to successful long-term investing. When investors focus on a company's fundamental value relative to its stock price, and not where the stock price sits today versus a month ago, a day ago, or five minutes ago, investors start to think like owners, not traders. And thinking like an owner will makes readers better investors. The book provides a fundamental framework for successful long-term investing. The book helps investors answer two key questions: How can investors identify a great business, and when should investors buy that business to maximize return? Using fundamental moat and valuation analysis has led to superior risk-adjusted returns and made Morningstar analysts some of the industry's top stock-pickers. In this book, Morningstar shares the ins and outs of its moat-driven investment philosophy, which readers can use to identify great stock picks for their own portfolios.




The Impact of Corporate Venture Capital


Book Description

Timo B. Poser shows that Corporate Venture Capital offers a broad set of advantages, but has a limited impact on sustainable competitive advantage of the investing firm.




Competitive Advantage


Book Description

Now beyond its eleventh printing and translated into twelve languages, Michael Porter’s The Competitive Advantage of Nations has changed completely our conception of how prosperity is created and sustained in the modern global economy. Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central America. Based on research in ten leading trading nations, The Competitive Advantage of Nations offers the first theory of competitiveness based on the causes of the productivity with which companies compete. Porter shows how traditional comparative advantages such as natural resources and pools of labor have been superseded as sources of prosperity, and how broad macroeconomic accounts of competitiveness are insufficient. The book introduces Porter’s “diamond,” a whole new way to understand the competitive position of a nation (or other locations) in global competition that is now an integral part of international business thinking. Porter's concept of “clusters,” or groups of interconnected firms, suppliers, related industries, and institutions that arise in particular locations, has become a new way for companies and governments to think about economies, assess the competitive advantage of locations, and set public policy. Even before publication of the book, Porter’s theory had guided national reassessments in New Zealand and elsewhere. His ideas and personal involvement have shaped strategy in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India, and regions such as Massachusetts, California, and the Basque country. Hundreds of cluster initiatives have flourished throughout the world. In an era of intensifying global competition, this pathbreaking book on the new wealth of nations has become the standard by which all future work must be measured.




The End of Competitive Advantage


Book Description

Are you at risk of being trapped in an uncompetitive business? Chances are the strategies that worked well for you even a few years ago no longer deliver the results you need. Dramatic changes in business have unearthed a major gap between traditional approaches to strategy and the way the real world works now. In short, strategy is stuck. Most leaders are using frameworks that were designed for a different era of business and based on a single dominant idea—that the purpose of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Once the premise on which all strategies were built, this idea is increasingly irrelevant. Now, Columbia Business School professor and globally recognized strategy expert Rita Gunther McGrath argues that it’s time to go beyond the very concept of sustainable competitive advantage. Instead, organizations need to forge a new path to winning: capturing opportunities fast, exploiting them decisively, and moving on even before they are exhausted. She shows how to do this with a new set of practices based on the notion of transient competitive advantage. This book serves as a new playbook for strategy, one based on updated assumptions about how the world works, and shows how some of the world’s most successful companies use this method to compete and win today. Filled with compelling examples from “growth outlier” firms such as Fujifilm, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Yahoo! Japan, and Atmos Energy, The End of Competitive Advantage is your guide to renewed success and profitable growth in an economy increasingly defined by transient advantage.




Rule #1


Book Description

Who's going to provide for your future? There's a crisis looming in pensions. Investing in property is time-consuming and risky. Savings accounts yield very little return. If you're not careful, you could be looking at a very uncomfortable retirement. But surely the alternative - investing in the stock market - is risky, complicated and best left to the professionals? Phil Town doesn't think so. He made a fortune, and in Rule #1 he'll show you how he did it. Rule #1: - Sets out the five key numbers that really count when you're buying stocks and shares - Explains how to use new Internet tools to simplify research - Shows how to exploit the advantages of being an individual investor - Demonstrates how to pay fifty pence for every pound's worth of business This simple and straightforward method will guide you to 15% or better annual returns - in only 15 minutes a week. It's money in the bank!




Strategic Investment


Book Description

Corporate finance and corporate strategy have long been seen as different sides of the same coin. Though both focus on the same broad problem, investment decision-making, the gap between the two sides--and between theory and practice--remains embarrassingly large. This book synthesizes cutting-edge developments in corporate finance and related fields--in particular, real options and game theory--to help bridge this gap. In clear, straightforward exposition and through numerous examples and applications from various industries, Han Smit and Lenos Trigeorgis set forth an extended valuation framework for competitive strategies. The book follows a problem-solving approach that synthesizes ideas from game theory, real options, and strategy. Thinking in terms of options-games can help managers address questions such as: When is it best to invest early to preempt competitive entry, and when to wait? Should a firm compete in R&D or adopt an accommodating stance? How does one value growth options or infrastructure investments? The authors provide a wide range of valuation examples, such as acquisition strategies, R&D investment in high-tech sectors, joint research ventures, product introductions in consumer electronics, infrastructure, and oil exploration investment. Representing a major step beyond standard real options or strategy analysis, and extending the power of real options and strategic thinking in a rigorous fashion, Strategic Investment will be an indispensable guide and resource for corporate managers, MBA students, and academics alike.




The Little Book That Builds Wealth


Book Description

Dieser praktische Leitfaden macht Anleger mit dem Economic Moat Konzept vertraut, der "Zauberformel" des Morningstar, mit der sich erstklassige Investmentchancen aufspüren lassen. Das Konzept ist keineswegs neu: Es wurde zunächst durch Benjamin Graham und Warren Buffett populär, wurde dann aber lange vernachlässigt. "The Little Book that Builds Wealth" erklärt ganz genau, wie man den Economic Moat, d.h. die Wettbewerbsbarriere bzw. den Wettbewerbsvorteil (wie z.B. geringe Produktionskosten, ausgebautes Vertriebsnetz, gutes Markenimage etc.) ermittelt, durch den sich ein Unternehmen deutlich von Konkurrenzunternehmen abgrenzt. Dabei geht es aber weder um reines Value Investing, noch um reines Growth Investing, sondern vielmehr darum, erstklassige Nischen-Wachstumswerte zu einem attraktiven Kurs zu kaufen. Das Buch demonstriert anschaulich Schritt für Schritt, was einen Economic Moat ausmacht, wie man ihn ermittelt, wie man verschiedene Moats gegeneinander abwägt, und wie man auf der Basis dieser Daten am besten eine Investmententscheidung trifft. Mit begleitender Website. Sie wird vom Morningstar betrieben und enthält eine Reihe von Tools und Features, mit deren Hilfe der Leser das Gelernte in der Praxis testen kann. Autor Pat Dorsey ist ein renommierter Finanzexperte. Er ist Chef der Morningstar Equity Research und Kolumnist bei Morningstar.com. Ein neuer Band aus der beliebten 'Little Book'-Reihe.